Vegas PBS Presents JFK Week

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by Latoya Bembry on

(Las Vegas – Nov. 4, 2013) — To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Vegas PBS will present “JFK Week,” featuring several in-depth new programs delving into his life and legacy.

Most notably, American Experience presents JFK, a new four-hour, two-part special that will premiere on Monday and Tuesday, November 11 & 12, 2013, at 9:00 p.m. Forever enshrined in myth by an assassin’s bullet, John F. Kennedy’s presidency has often defied objective appraisal. This new portrait, part of the Peabody Award-winning American Experience series, The Presidents, offers a fresh assessment of the man, his accomplishments and his unfulfilled promise. Produced and directed by Susan Bellows, JFK features interviews with Kennedy family members and historians including Robert Dallek, Robert Caro and Evan Thomas.

American Experience: JFK provides a fresh look at an enigmatic man who remains one of the nation’s most beloved and mourned leaders. Beginning with Kennedy’s childhood years as the privileged but sickly second son of one of the wealthiest men in America, the film explores his early political career as a lackluster congressman, his successful run for the U.S. Senate, and the game-changing presidential campaign that made him the youngest elected president in U.S. history. With the benefit of recently opened archives, the film recounts his struggles with life-threatening illnesses and his efforts to keep them hidden from the public. JFK offers new perspectives on his complicated private life, including his relationship with his wife, his close connection to his younger brother, Robert, and his complex bond with his powerful father. It also reevaluates Kennedy’s strengths and weaknesses in the Oval Office as he navigated some of the most explosive events of the 20th century: the disastrous failure at the Bay of Pigs, the urgent demands of an increasingly impatient civil rights movement, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the escalating conflict in Southeast Asia.

In addition, Vegas PBS’ “JFK Week” lineup includes the following programs:

Great Romances of the Twentieth Century: Jackie Bouvier & John F. Kennedy

Monday, November 11 at 7:30 p.m.

Jackie Bouvier’s marriage to John F. Kennedy sealed a high-profile political relationship. But there was far more to Jackie than a dutiful wife coping with her husband’s philandering.

Antiques Roadshow: Politically Collect

Monday, November 11 at 8 p.m.

This edition celebrates America’s passion for collecting and electing. Highlights include signed photos of Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, valued at $75,000; and an extensive collection of campaign buttons.

NOVA: Cold Case JFK

Wednesday, November 13 at 9 p.m.

Fifty years later, what can science tell us about the Kennedy assassination – and the investigations that followed? Follow a group of experts trying to unravel the lingering mysteries of the assassination.

Secrets of the Dead: JFK: One PM Central Standard Time

Wednesday, November 13 at 10 p.m.

Fifty years after the tragic shooting of President John F. Kennedy, Secrets of the Dead chronicles minute-by-minute the assassination as it was revealed in the CBS newsroom from the moment the President was shot until Walter Cronkite’s emotional pronouncement of his death, one hour and eight minutes later.

FRONTLINE: Who Was Lee Harvey Oswald?

Tuesday, November 19 at 10 p.m.

This investigative biography examines the Kennedy assassination by exploring the enigma that was Lee Harvey Oswald. Was Oswald the emotionally disturbed lone gunman of the 1964 Warren Commission Report? Was he, as the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded in 1979, only one of two gunmen that day in Dallas? Or was he an unwitting scapegoat for the real assassins, as Oswald himself claimed when he was arrested?

For more information on “JFK Week,” including episode descriptions, please visit VegasPBS.org.

About Vegas PBS

Dedicated to enriching the lives of those who call Southern Nevada home, Vegas PBS Channel 10 is one of America’s most watched PBS stations on a per capita basis. Five additional channels are available over the air or on cable and satellite including Create, Vme, Worldview, Rewind and Jackpot!

Vegas PBS provides K 12 educational resources to teachers and students in public, private, charter and home schools including TeacherLine professional development courses; One Place, a curriculum-correlated online media service; the Described and Captioned Media Center (DCMC) containing materials for deaf, hard of hearing, blind and vision impaired individuals and those who assist them; and Ready To Learn literacy and health community workshops based on curriculum materials in daytime children’s programs.